


Saturday (A Marrow Epilogue)

by Dividedpoet



Series: Throw me a lifeline ('Cause honey I got nothing to lose): The Ballad of Bone Dry - A Bucky/Darcy Coffee Shop AU [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Memory Loss, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-traumatic retrograde amnesia, Retrograde Amnesia, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 07:11:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4819967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dividedpoet/pseuds/Dividedpoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Darcy sticks out her hand and Bruce takes it. "Nice to meet you," he says.</i>
</p><p>  <i>"Likewise." Darcy spares Bucky a look but he shrugs, feeling the weight of being home and the possibility of passing out in his bed more and more. This is an important moment. Bucky knows this is an important moment. Darcy is meeting half of the couple responsible for some of his most destructive moments. Bucky just can't work up the energy to be anxious about it.</i></p><p>Darcy meets Bruce and Natasha.</p><p>The epilogue for the third installment of my Bucky/Darcy Coffee Shop AU, "It's like marrow without bone..."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saturday (A Marrow Epilogue)

**Author's Note:**

> An: This is the epilogue for Marrow. I apologize for posting it separately but it occurred to me if I simply added it to the end it might be missed. Furthermore, I apologize for how short this is consideringq how long I've taken to post it.
> 
> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoy it! And as always, concrit is welcome.
> 
> Now being beta'd by the amazing, [TeaAndTricks](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaAndTricks/pseuds/TeaAndTricks)

**Saturday:**

Bucky wakes up in Darcy's bed at four-thirty in the morning, the same time he typically gets to his coffee shop, and he doesn't think it's dramatic at all to liken how he feels to death. He'd been ignoring the scratch in his throat, chalking up any bad feeling to his general state of misery over the last few days. Now his head seems to weigh three hundred pounds and he's having trouble breathing.

The wheezing must wake Darcy because soon she's sitting up. "Dude..." 

Bucky shakes his head, "It doesn't matter."

Darcy furrows her eyebrows, "What doesn't matter? You don't know what I was gonna say."

Bucky pushes himself into a sitting position, "You were gonna tell me I'm sick. It doesn't matter." He's out of bed, heedless of his aching limbs.

"Um, I would like to state emphatically that it does," Darcy says, her tone suddenly deadpan.

Bucky doesn't stop moving. "No, I get that it matters. I do. But it doesn't, because I already had to close the shop more this month than I ever have. And as wonderful as it was, I sort of used my monthly allotment of favors on other things."

Darcy stares at him as he dresses but it doesn't take long for her to hop out of bed and join him.

"What are you doing?" Bucky asks, consonants muddled by phlegm and sinus pressure.

"I'm getting dressed."

"Why?" They don't make it a step further into that argument. Darcy stops what she's doing and fixes Bucky with a look. He sighs, "Fine." Bucky lets Darcy walk with him to the shop. He won't let her touch him at first, but after the second time he ends up on his ass in the snow during a coughing fit he lets her take his arm. Okay, Bucky doesn't "let" Darcy do anything. She sort of just does it without waiting for permission or acceptance.

Bucky loves that about Darcy.

The shop is open and running by six, Darcy doing everything including cook because, "Dear lord, do you _want_ your customers to contract whatever disease you're rocking?" 

When Steve walks in around seven and sees Darcy manning the stove and Bucky at the cash register he sighs and calls Sam. Sam shows up half an hour later and it take them twelve minutes to try and convince Bucky to go see a doctor but only six minutes to convince Bucky he needs to go home.

"Buck, I can drive the two of you. We'll go, get you some codeine, head back to your place, and Darcy can play nursemaid," Steve pleads.

Bucky's out of breath at this point, signs of his cold getting more prominent. "I don't need a nursemaid, I need a paycheck and - "

"You need meds and you need to sleep," Steve says, cutting him off.

"I don't-"

"You do. Last time you did this you ended up with walking pneumonia and they tried to put you on anti-psychotics," Steve hisses, exasperated and looking about ready to throw Bucky over his shoulder. If it wasn't for the metal arm he probably would have already.

"Man!" Sam interrupts, smacking an empty coffee pot on the counter in frustration. "Get the fuck out. I can honestly say that I don't want your plague anywhere near me and neither do your customers."

A cursory glance at the wary looks of said customers confirms Sam's words. "Fine," Bucky grunts, pushing up from the stool Darcy settled him on. "But when I'm sleeping on your floor, punk, you better remember you didn't let me do my job," Bucky says to Steve, pointing a warning finger at him.

Sam shakes his head. "You'll be able to pay your rent. That's why my ass is in here. Stop being such a drama queen."

Darcy and Bucky pile into Steve's car after assuring Bucky that his customers would probably be more inclined to spend their money on his products if he left. 

From the backseat Bucky does his best to make his voice firm, "Home. No doctors."

Steve sighs, "What if - "

"No doctors," Bucky repeats. It isn't the doctors that he has a problem with so much as the hospitals they tend to work in and the way machinery acts around his arm.

Steve relents, shoulders slumping. "Okay, Buck." 

"You know what's funny?" Darcy asks suddenly. "You've been carrying this thing around already, so really it's too late for -" Darcy catches Bucky's deepening frown. "Stopping that train of thought now," she finishes quietly, settling back in her seat.

Bruce is waiting outside of Bucky's building when they get there and Bucky shoots Steve a glare in the rearview mirror. 

Steve shrugs. "You said no doctors," he says before he climbs out of the car.

"Law abiding my ass, texting and driving," Bucky grumbles as he pulls himself out of the vehicle. Darcy snorts and takes his arm to steady him.

"Is he actually dying? 'Cause I don't think I can cure death," Bruce says, eyebrow arched but good-natured smile on his face.

"Darcy, this is Bruce Banner, our resident...well, Resident," Steve says by way of introduction. 

Darcy sticks out her hand and Bruce takes it. "Nice to meet you," he says.

"Likewise." Darcy spares Bucky a look but he shrugs, feeling the weight of being home and the possibility of passing out in his bed more and more. This is an important moment. Bucky knows this is an important moment. Darcy is meeting half of the couple responsible for some of his most destructive moments. Bucky just can't work up the energy to be anxious about it.

As with most things concerning Bruce these days, however, anxiety seems completely unnecessary. Bruce picks up the bag at his feet. "I'll check you out, make sure you haven't contracted anything serious. But I'm thinking this is going to be a dope you up so you can sleep it off situation."

Bucky nods, breathes, wheezes out a cough, and groans. "Why do I live so high up?"

Steve rolls his eyes. "You're on the second floor," he points out.

"And again I say," Pause to cough, "Why do I live so high up?"

Steve shakes his head as the entire party heads for Bucky's apartment. 

The trip up the stairs is a slow one. Bucky stops three times to wheeze and cough. 

"Jesus, you take up a pack a day while no one was looking?" Darcy asks when Bucky pauses two steps from the top to hack up a lung. Bucky pokes in her general direction and gets a stifled giggle for his efforts as his finger hits soft belly fat. "Hey there, watch where you jab that thing."

Steve takes Bucky's keys and goes to open the door as Bucky climbs those last steps. Once up Bucky heads through the door and straight for his room, heedless of the people trailing behind him. They've been there before, they can find their own way. Well, with the exception of dragging Darcy along. Her hand feels so warm. He tows her all the way into his room before letting go of her hand to flop on the bed. Darcy snorts from the doorway where he'd released her.

"I don't think facedown is going to help that whole breathing situation," she comments. Then there is movement and a hand is carding through Bucky's hair. 

Bucky groans, pressing his head back toward her hand. "Maybe if I deprive myself of oxygen entirely I'll pass out," he mumbles into his pillow.

"There are more humane ways to encourage unconsciousness," Bruce pipes up from the bedroom doorway.

"Yeah, but I don't think Darcy will suffocate me with her breasts as long as you guys are standing in the room." The words are sassy, but Bucky's still face down delivery leaves something to be desired.

Once Bucky is situated, face up, in his room Bruce does a barebones check up complete with listening to Bucky's chest, shining a light in his mouth, and looking in his ears. With a fair amount of certainty Bruce declares the illness garden variety and passes Bucky a shot of Nyquil. He's out like a light within five minutes, proving the Nyquil pretty unnecessary.

Bucky wakes up an unknown amount of time later to Natasha peering down at him. He still feels like shit but he can breathe so that's nice. Out of the corner of his eyes he sees Bruce is nowhere to be found and Darcy is hovering inside the doorway casting cursory glances between Natasha and Bucky.

"That's not good," he comments, tone gravelly as all hell. "Where are Steve and Bruce?"

Natasha gives him a thin smile. "You weren't around to make introductions so we had to take it upon ourselves," she says. Then she hands him a small shot glass with some kind of thick amber liquid. "Steve went to go help Sam in the shop, Bruce had an appointment, and I brought the good drugs."

Bucky takes the glass from Natasha and downs it before handing it back to her. "You know what," he starts, settling back into his pillows and turning on his side. "I take it back. Maybe you two meeting while I'm unconscious is perfect." He sees Darcy's face split into an amused grin at that right before he passes out again. 

The next time Bucky wakes up it's dark out and he's alone in his room. The house smells like coffee and he can hear voices coming from the livingroom. Slowly, achingly, Bucky climbs out of bed and stumbles over to the open door in order to look out. What he sees and hears surprises him to say the least. Darcy and Natasha are talking, fully immersed in a conversation he never expected them to have, let alone so quickly and in his apartment.

"Had anything like that ever happened with you two before?" Darcy asks, sipping from a mug with her feet tucked under her on the couch, facing Natasha.

Natasha, sitting in a similar fashion, shakes her head. “That was our only...encounter and it was about as much fun as going over a cliff. It was reckless and didn't serve as the comfort we’d intended." She pauses for a moment, seemingly examining Darcy to determine how far she should go. Natasha takes a breath. "It happened and he fell apart," she sighs. "Turns out he didn’t need anyone else in his life confusing his classifications of trust." Bucky feels Natasha's words in his gut, just as he had when she said similar ones to him a few years back. "Bruce and I were at a conference when James showed up at our hotel. Bruce answered the door and there was nothing I could do after that. I’d spent so much of my energy trying to protect him from a decision other people made and it didn’t do anything in the end.” Natasha shakes her head. 

Darcy’s eyes are wide as saucers. “But, you and Bruce are still together. He forgave you. He _smiles_ at him. Helps him. How?”

Natasha glances down at her lap, “Initially I thought maybe it was the counseling they'd made him do, that when he calmed down it told him James and I were suffering from...some psychological ailment I will always confuse with other closely named psychological ailments. I hate psychology by the way," Natasha comments, looking up and shrugging. "But when I finally asked him he told me it was simpler than that. That he understood my relationship with James, understood what it wasn't, and he loved me more than he was hurt.” She takes a deep breath, as if the sheer act of telling the story is exhausting, “He helped me and Steve track James to the base in Paramus where his orders originated from when he was active. And when James came back to himself, Bruce helped him find a hospital that specialized in cases like his.” Darcy is silent. Natasha tilts her head to survey the girl in front of her. “Love shouldn’t beat you down,” she says after a moment. “It should build you up. If it beats you down, I’ll bet you anything it's not the right kind of love.”

The words throw Darcy off kilter, if her suddenly straightened posture is anything to go by. After a moment she asks, “You love your doctor?”

“I _love_ my doctor," Natasha says without pause.

Darcy nods. “He sounds like a good man.”

“He is.”

“Okay, we’re cool.” Darcy furrows her eyebrows. “We’ll I mean, you’re about a million times hotter than I am in that whole, I might be scared of you because I think you’re secretly some military spy, kind of way. But, I’ll make peace with that eventually.”

Natasha laughs and it could easily be the scariest sound ever heard by human ears.

**Author's Note:**

> Even though I have a beta now, feel free to leave concrit! I appreciate feedback. :-)


End file.
